Heavy influx of US arms and Saudi cash is bringing the Syrian opposition, including the Islamist Nusra front, victories against Assad’s army. Assad has asked Tehran for new guarantees for his presidency.

A high-level Hizballah delegation arrived secretly in Tehran Tuesday, April 28, with the military group led by Syrian Defense Minister Fahad Jassim al-Freij, debkafile discloses exclusively. Both are taking part in the military and intelligence consultations with Iranian officials on the war situation in Syria and steps against Israel. A Gulf intelligence source said those steps were quickly finalized. The IDF on the Golan can expect a far more active and intense front than ever before, he warned - a small foretaste of which was the failed bomb attack Sunday.

Obama’s detente with Iran and recognition of Bashar Assad’s key role in Syria has produced an incredibly sinister new twist in the Syrian war. debkafile reveals: The Yarmouk refugee camp and its 16,000 occupants face not one enemy, but two: the Islamic State and Assad’s army, which opened the way for the ISIS attack. Assad first agreed to split energy revenues with ISIS and went on to outsource the terrorists for a demonstration in Yarmouk to allies and foes alike that he holds the whip hand in the Syrian war and the fate of the Palestinians.

The Obama administration has embarked on a bid to come to terms with Bashar Assad to lure Tehran into signing a nuclear accord. An end to the Syrian war would disburden Iran of its colossal ongoing investment in keeping Assad in power.

Shortly before President Barack Obama was to unveil his strategy for tackling ISIS in Iraq and Syria Wednesday, Sept. 10, US and Syrian officers held secret talks for coordinating their military efforts in Syria against the common foe, debkafile reveals exclusively. The Syrian officers, on the authority of President Bashar Assad, met on the quiet several times with American officers in the capital of one of the Gulf emirates – probably Muscat in Oman. The Syrian side of the US campaign is judged to be more complicated than the operation in Iraq.

While Obama works with Iran to fight Islamists, he faces a rival bloc doing the same in Egypt, Saudi Arabia in Israel. But will he be willing to take Hizballah and Iran as partners and part of the deal?

A joint UN observer-Iranian military team began evacuating 2,000 Syrian rebels and their families from the Old City of Homs Wednesday, May 7 ending the Syrian army’s brutal two-year siege. It was another major victory for President Bashar Assad. As a rebel on his way out put it to Western reporters, “The rest of the world failed us.” That the UN needed Iranian aid to accomplish this rescue attested to Tehran’s dominant role in Damascus – even greater than that of Russia - and the Revolutionary Guards’ control over Syrian and Hizballah military forces.

In his three years as AMAN chief, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, just appointed OC Northern Command, was credited with enhancing the corps’ operational capabilities. But, on the debit side, he made three major miscalculations: He overrated the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s life expectancy, underrated Bashar Assad’s chances of survival; and did not recommend that Israel halt Hizballah’s military intervention in the Syrian War. Kochavi shared his second mistake with Prince Bandar, who paid for it by his replacement as Director of Saudi Intelligence on April 15.

Hizballlah leader Hassan Nasrallah seeks the role of key to resolving the Syrian civil conflict and the Obama administration in deference to that role has launched a secret dialogue with the Lebanese group.

Syrian rebels have been sighted wielding anti-aircraft weapons in various combat sectors in the last few days. Just as on April 6 debkafile was the first publication to disclose the supply of US weapons - BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles – to certain Syrian rebel militias, our military sources now reveal the delivery of Russian-made 9K310 Igla-1 aka SA-16 anti-aircraft rockets, whose operational range is 5.2 km. While the rebels can now hit Syrian assault aircraft for the first time, the new systems comes too late to turn the tide of war.

Israel’s strategists have found a new cause for disquiet. On top of concern over the concentration of al Qaeda fighting strength around its borders, they are beginning to worry about Russian President Vladimir Putin capitalizing on America’s withdrawal from the Middle East, by means of military pacts with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Egypt's Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. Since Egypt’s economic woes are incurable, El-Sisi plans to build a strong regime with Russian and Saudi support and lead a pan-Arab nationalist movement – potentially versus Israel.